Conrad's Gift

Updated March 7, 2008 12:01 am ET

Congress is starting to move its annual budget outline, and the Members are lucky there's a hot Presidential race. Maybe the voters won't notice that "fiscal discipline," in the phony Beltway phrase, is less disciplined than ever.

Look no further than Kent Conrad, the Senate Budget Chairman and godfather of "pay as you go" budgeting. Paygo requires that new entitlement spending and tax cuts be offset dollar for dollar with spending cuts or tax increases. As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it: "Instead...